Recruiting job applicants takes effort. Recruiting job applicants that fit your HR department’s carefully considered criteria, and winning them away from equally talent-hungry competitors is enough to make you rip your hair out. Building a better mobile recruitment strategy is an important step toward crafting the ultimate talent pool, and SMS automation software is arguably the very best way to do it.
Some 60% of recruiters are already integrating SMS into their mobile recruitment strategy, but how many of those people are using their own phones? Some companies offer key employees smartphones on which to conduct business, but without that dedicated line, recruiters are forced to text from their personal lines. The potential for mixing up personal and professional communication is great, and functionality is limited.
With SMS automation software, you can message groups, organize contacts to a greater (and more detailed) degree, send messages from the office network, and set a reply-to number that isn’t your private line. The responsibility for text-based recruitment is no longer in the hands of the one person who holds the smartphone, but in the collective hands of the entire team who can schedule, send, and respond to texts from their own phone, laptop, or PC.
Mobile marketing automation isn’t just a way to send texts faster. Most automation software boasts a variety of other features that help with organization, scheduling, and so forth. Depending on the application, you may be able to track who you’ve already sent messages to, see who has replied, rank previously sent texts according to their efficacy, and use all that data to do even better down the line.
Being able to narrow your contact list based on interest level or geographic location or the department which has the current job opening is also valuable; you’ll not only save money if you’re using pay-per-message software, you’ll also avoid annoying those people for whom your message, for whatever reason, would hold little value.
Text boast an open rate some experts put as high as 99%. Most of those are opened in just a few minutes. That’s pretty impressive, but when you’re SMS system is as simple as one person manually entering text and hitting ‘send,’ that immediacy doesn’t seem quite as convenient. You want your message, whatever it may be, to reach your audience quickly, but more and more companies are realizing that it’s not their own timetable that’s important but rather the consumer’s.
Sending job opening notifications at 1 am because that’s when the recruiter had time to do it is not going to go over well when it’s arrival wakes the recipient. Sending a note on Tuesday confirming that you received an upload of important application-related documents last Friday can be similarly irritating if the applicant has been waiting to see if their application was, indeed, complete.
Automation allows you to set certain messages, such as those “We’ve received your application” confirmations, to go out as soon as they’re triggered. It’s a win-win situation, really – you’re free to concentrate on the things automation software simply can’t handle, and potential recruits aren’t left hanging.
Somewhat understandably, recruiters may be afraid that switching to automated software will make communications seem robotic or remote; in fact the opposite is true. Automation software often allows you to send out messages based on the preferences indicated by subscribers when they sign up, and you can personalize group messages with individual names, geographic locations, details of past interactions, etc., all without the need to painstakingly enter those tidbits manually.
Reality is so often about perception, and these small efforts toward better personalization can lead recruits to see your company as more in touch, more attached, more invested in their future, and more receptive to a long-term rapport.
There are certainly both pros and cons to texting for talent. While the final decision may depend on your company’s specific needs, it’s hard to argue with this fact: 79% of adults between the ages of 18 and 44 have their phones nearby 22 hours each day, and nearly one-third would rather be contacted by text rather than by phone. The opportunity and desire are there, and now the software is, too. What else do hard-working recruiters need?
